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WICKED GOOD CITRUS BARBECUE SAUCE

Through years of tireless experimentation, I’ve come up with a barbecue sauce that I feel is the best I’ve ever had. Granted, everybody has their favorites, but this one kicks ass. I prefer a slightly sweet and tangy barbecue sauce, so unless I’m making a classic pulled pork sandwich, I usually avoid vinegar-based sauces. It works well with pork, but especially well with chicken.

What makes this sauce special is the citrus. I originally used lemon juice for this recipe and it was good. Lime juice was better. Adding lime zest: even better than that. I tried orange juice and zest: a little too sweet. Meyer lemon: very good. But the Big Daddy of ’em all: grapefruit. I was craving my barbecue sauce one day and only had a grapefruit in the fridge. I thought: how bad could this be? Turned out to be the perfect foil to the sweetness of the brown sugar and ketchup.

Try this sauce on your next batch of chicken wings or even a whole bird. Cook the bird almost all the way through, brushing the sauce on for the last 20 minutes so that the sugars don’t burn. Then just try to stop eating it!

ALZ GRAPEFRUIT BARBECUE SAUCE

Ingredients:

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

Juice and zest of 1 grapefruit

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup dried onion flakes

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper sauce, like Frank’s Red Hot

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

(no salt)

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes on low, or until slightly thickened.